In order to meet the demand of the growing electronics industry, semiconductor manufacturers are faced with many challenges in supplying suitable semiconductor devices. One challenge is to provide customers with very small, yet powerful, devices. However, this challenge is not easily met. As the power and performance of a device increases, the heat dissipated during the operation of the device also increases. Operating a device at high temperatures is undesirable because heat can lead to a reduced operating lifetime of the device and can also affect the operation of other components within an electronic system. While methods for handling an increased device temperature exist, for instance the addition of a heat sink to the device, these methods usually increase the overall size of the device significantly.
Furthermore, powerful devices also require a large number of pins or leads to electrically access the semiconductor die. In an effort to accommodate a large number of leads in a small package, many manufactures use thin, fragile, densely spaced leads. The use of such leads creates a variety of manufacturing and handling problems. Handling devices with such fragile leads can result in bent and non-coplanar leads, making it difficult to properly mount the device to a substrate, such as a PC (printed circuit) board.
Therefore, a need exists for an improved semiconductor device, and more specifically for an improved semiconductor device which is small, can be easily adapted to dissipate heat without increasing the size of the device, and is less susceptible to lead damage.